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MSNBC Ratings Fall 40%: Countdown to Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews Firings
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On April 2, 2015 @ 9:23 am In The Point | No Comments
CNN and FOX News have stepped up their game. CNN has gone full infotainment under Jeff Zucker and is eating MSNBC’s lunch. Meanwhile MSNBC has the same cast of social justice warriors with occasional interruptions from idiots like Al Sharpton and Chris Matthews offering the same predigested pablum that MSNBC’s younger audience gets in mock form from the Daily Show.
The collapse is hitting fast and hard. MSNBC’s demo ratings, the 25-54 adult audience, has fallen anywhere from 39% to 45% (I’ve seen three numbers quoted across Variety, Deadline and Mediaite, 39%, 40% and 45%).
For Q1 2015, MSNBC’s weekday primetime experienced a 45% decrease in key 25-54 demo viewership from Q1 2014. The network’s total daytime demo viewership declined 39% from Q1 2014. Additionally, a key program like The Rachel Maddow Show hit an all-time low in quarterly demo ratings since its Sept. 2008 launch.
In total day and weekday primetime demo ratings, MSNBC hit its lowest quarterly levels in 10 years (since Q2 2005), and its lowest quarter of total viewership since the last quarter of 2007.
There really isn’t anyone watching.
For the quarter on a total-day basis, Fox News ruled in adults 25-54 with 210,000 (down 8% from last year) while CNN (148,000, up 20%) and HLN (130,000, up 33%) were able to inch closer. MSNBC, on the other hand, tumbled 39% to 86,000.
86,000 people in the demo watching on average. MSNBC could get better ratings by replacing its programming with paint drying. And speaking of paint drying, it’s a bad day to be Maddow… or Matthews.
With just 145,000 viewers among the 25-54s on average over the December 29, 2014 – March 29, 2015 period, the once-proud flagship The Rachel Maddow Show hit an all-time quarter low with the worst result since its September 8, 2008 launch. Not only is Maddow down 46% in the demo, but her 9 PM show is also down 19% in total viewers. Fellow primetime show All In With Chris Hayes and Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell fell to their worst quarterly demo ratings since their respective 2013 and 2010 debuts. O’Donnell’s show also had its lowest total quarterly viewership results. And 7 PM’s Hardball With Chris Matthews had its lowest-rated quarter in the demo since 2Q 2005 with an average viewership of 126,000.
Does it even seem worth mentioning that CNN sister station HLN beat MSNBC for the fourth quarter in a row in total day demo? Or that MSNBC lost out to its own sister station CNBC in primetime demo for the second quarter in row? Well, they did.
Maddow and Matthews are done. The only question is on what terms. Farrow was eased out. So was Schultz, but Maddow got control of MSNBC’s programming and ran it off a bridge. MSNBC caught Maddow disease and there’s no easy cure.
She isn’t likely to give up being queen bee quietly and settle for occasionally getting a documentary or a weekend edition.
And MSNBC is wary of losing the only viewers it has left.
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